CISA election – State election officials say federal agencies, including CISA, have fallen short in sharing election threat information, leaving them to stitch together alternative channels for the 2026 midterms.
When election staff in multiple states compare notes now, the conversation starts to sound the same: the federal layer that once fed them threat warnings isn’t there the way it used to be.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said the loss is not theoretical. “We’re talking about the real potential that something might be able to slip through the cracks. There’s a lot more cracks than there used to be,” the Democrat said. He added: “I think we will make it through 2026. I think it’s sufficient, but it’s certainly not equal.”.
The worry is rooted in what state officials say they’re no longer reliably receiving from Washington as the 2026 elections approach. Internal documents from the National Association of Secretaries of State—obtained through a records request by Property of the People and shared exclusively with MISRYOUM—warn that states do not expect federal agencies to act as a dependable national hub for election threat information sharing.
A March 27 memo from the bipartisan association says. “federal agencies are not seen by states as reliable or sufficient options for being the national hub for election threat information sharing.” It adds that “states do not expect these entities to reliably share the information they receive.” The memo also points to the staffing. funding. and organizational shifts around the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. or CISA. a nonpartisan federal agency created after 2016 to help prevent election interference.
On March 11. the association’s president and executive board urged the White House to continue providing threat information to state and local election officials. The push was led by Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson. a Republican. who responded to the March 27 memo by saying. “A brief review but looks fine to me.”.
A separate staff message from Democratic Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, the president-elect, responded positively on March 30.
The memo’s meeting summary included threat intelligence teams from Microsoft and Google, alongside discussions between the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors.
CISA disputes the impression of abandonment in principle. In a statement provided in response to concerns. the agency said: “We are committed to supporting state and local elections officials to protect election infrastructure and safeguard our democracy.” The agency did not respond to requests for examples of work it has done with states in 2026.
In the meantime, the distrust has become practical—states are planning as if they won’t get the same early warnings they once did.
One of the starkest descriptions came from Fontes. He said CISA support has dropped “significantly” across both Republican- and Democratic-led states since the changes accelerated. “We’re not getting any information, we’re not getting any support, we’re not getting any help,” he said. “CISA basically has been eviscerated as far as their support of election administration is concerned.”.
Over the last year, the staffing and funding changes that state officials cite have been severe. The Department of Homeland Security let go a third of CISA employees in 2025 through buyouts. early retirements. forced reassignments. and sweeping layoffs. It also eliminated millions of dollars in funding for multi-state and elections infrastructure information-sharing programs—moves that state officials say dismantled the infrastructure meant to inform election officials of potential cyber threats. CISA still does not have a Senate-confirmed director.
In addition to the operational strains, the political direction has added uncertainty. Since returning to office, Trump has moved to overhaul election administration with calls to “nationalize” elections. The administration has sued states for access to voter rolls. and the FBI has seized materials from the 2020 election in Georgia and Arizona. Trump has also talked about sending the National Guard or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the polls. a shift that has prompted states to train election workers on what to do.
That combination—less federal infrastructure, more aggressive federal actions, and new rhetoric about federal control—has left officials bracing for a worst-case scenario, even as they work to maintain safeguards.
David Becker. founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. said he does not see states treating the federal government as a partner anymore. “I don’t know of a single jurisdiction that is looking to the federal government as a leader or an expert. or a partner. If anything, they’re preparing for the opposite,” Becker said.
A federal pullback has forced the work into the hands of others: state election offices, nonprofits, and technology companies.
State officials say they’ve leaned on one another through professional associations and on private-sector partners for parts of the intelligence pipeline. The National Association of Secretaries of State says it has “stepped up its efforts this year,” according to spokesman John Milhofer.
But another internal email sent March 30 makes the limit of that strategy clear. It says the association doesn’t want to overpromise compared with what the federal government has done in the past.
“We are basically recommending sharing everything with everyone depending on each state’s comfort level with each entity. Unfortunately. I think NASS and NASED are the only options for reliably sharing with other states this year. but we can’t do much to help with incident response (besides making connections). ” the email says.
Fontes said rebuilding trust and coordination takes time and resources. “It’s hurt and it’s cost us a lot of time and a lot of energy to try and put stuff back together,” he said.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. a Democrat. described a world where states learn about certain threats through the news instead of through classified briefings. “They’ve continued to send the message that the states are on their own,” Bellows said. She added that there have been no classified briefings for election officials about whether Iran is stepping up efforts to disrupt the election during the ongoing war. Bellows said working with private sector and nonprofit partners should help fill gaps. but “there’s no question that this is really a function that the federal government should be providing.”.
Hobbs and other state election officials have said the feeling of being on their own is intensified by the scale of foreign interest in U.S. elections. Hobbs said the resources being directed at election interference are enormous, while states are forced to respond separately. “They’re shoving all these resources into doing that and we have to fight separately. Fifty states and territories are going to fight separately. We try to get unified as much as possible. We’re doing the best we can. but it would be nice to have the government there with another added layer of protection. ” Hobbs said.
The picture gets more specific when officials talk about what the federal system used to provide before the pullback.
Hobbs said the difference is not only information, but timing—federal agencies often alerted states before attacks occurred. He described receiving a late-night call in 2023 after CISA detected unusual activity from a foreign IP address accessing the Clark County. Washington. website. including the election section. Hobbs said he disconnected the state’s voter database from the site and sent a quick reaction team to close whatever gap the foreign users had slipped through. He said the website was back up within 100 hours.
If a similar incident happened before the 2026 midterm elections, Hobbs said, the call might not come. He said he fears a cyberattack could happen and election officials might not even know without the “safety blanket” of federal help.
Technology companies have been pulled further into the effort, not to replace federal intelligence gathering, but to add coverage.
The March 27 memo also says major technology companies—including Microsoft. Google. Cloudflare. and Halcyon. which track threats targeting elections both domestically and globally—are willing to brief election officials on threats throughout the year. The National Association of Secretaries of State already offered briefings from private companies and plans a series on election threats this year.
Officials welcomed expanded support from private companies, but they said it cannot replicate the intelligence and operational capabilities of agencies such as the FBI, the National Security Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security.
In that sense, the central conflict is not whether states will keep working—it’s whether they will get the kind of early-warning pipeline that once made the work feel coordinated across jurisdictions.
Watson. who is also the association’s president. said in a statement provided by his staff that there is uncertainty about federal service availability for the 2026 election year. particularly election threat information sharing. He said he has been in touch with the DOJ and the acting director of CISA over the last couple of days and is hopeful those conversations will continue.
CISA’s statement, meanwhile, emphasized commitment to supporting state and local elections officials. But for many state leaders, the gap between commitment and routine delivery has already widened—and they are trying to bridge it without expecting Washington to do it for them.
There’s a practical urgency behind that shift: the next midterms are coming on a fixed calendar. By 2026, states say they want fewer surprises, even if the “national hub” they once leaned on is no longer behaving like one.
CISA election security state election officials threat intelligence sharing 2026 midterms cybersecurity Department of Homeland Security Microsoft Google Cloudflare Halcyon National Association of Secretaries of State National Association of State Election Directors